War Thunder is on fire tonight
Gaijin Entertainment announces that the Fire and Ice update for the military online action War Thunder is already available to players. It adds Finnish air and ground vehicle branches (including the famous BT-42 tank), dozens of other tanks, ships and aircraft like the modern American M1A2 SEP main battle tank with the TUSK kit, the legendary Japanese battleship Fuso, the latest Russian anti-aircraft gun 2S38 "Derivatsia-PVO", as well as two new maps - "Arctic" and "Rocky Canyon".
The first flamethrower-equipped tanks and boats also debut in the game. Finally, aircraft fuselages will now feature realistic volumetric holes in addition to the local smoke and fire effects, and hitting the water will now produce a new, reworked splash effect.
The British Churchill Crocodile is one of the most famous flamethrower tanks in history. It is built on the design of the Mk.VII version with a 75mm cannon and excellent protection, but also equipped with a flamethrower, which is fed by a fuel trailer attached behind the tank. Thanks to this trailer, the Churchill Crocodile has the largest number of fire mixture charges among tanks, and also is the longest tank in the game. Also debuting in the game is the American flamethrower boat “Zippo”, created during the Vietnam War on the design of the LCM(6) landing craft. Flamethrowers, located on the sides in the bow, will be an excellent tool in battles at close range. Spectacular fires in the jungle can also be started by the American carrier-based A-1H Skyraider attack aircraft that has napalm bombs in its arsenal. Those three vehicle models are available with the release of the Fire and Ice update as prizes for the new Battle Pass season.
Flamethrower tanks are effective in approximately the same situations as the napalm bombings presented in the game earlier. The flame will not cause damage to the crew of a heavily armored vehicle, but light vehicles are extremely vulnerable to it: the fire mixture will instantly destroy the crew in the open cabin and set fire to the equipment. Tank mounts fire long jets of pressurized fire in a cantilevered trajectory, and they can reach the enemy even behind small cover. In addition, the wheel liners of ground vehicles are now ignited by napalm, so after driving through a burning puddle, the player's tank will look very infernal.
The battleship Fuso entered the service of the Japanese Imperial Navy in 1915, was significantly modernized in the interwar period and participated in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle of World War II. That late version of Fuso is the one that made it to War Thunder now. The main caliber of the ship is six twin 14-inch guns, evenly distributed over the entire deck of the ship. Good aiming angles and no less decent ballistic characteristics of Fuso allow her to inflict colossal damage on the enemy.
The 2S38 "Derivatsia-PVO" is an anti-aircraft artillery module with a 57mm cannon mounted on a modified BMP-3 chassis. The first prototype of the machine was presented in 2018. The uninhabited turret includes an automatic target tracking for air targets, a laser rangefinder, a coaxial machine gun, a laser warning sensor and a thermal imager.. Using the APFSDS rounds, 2S38 can even deal with a tank if it comes in from the flank.